Not Registered?

Welcome! Please register to view all of the new posts and forum boards - some of which are hidden to guests. After registering and gaining 10 posts you will be able to sell and buy items on our N'porium.

If you have any problems registering, then please check your spam filter before emailing us. Hotmail users seem to find their emails in the Junk folder.

Dave would need to first decide on spec, try to estimate the volume that will sell, then get a quote from the factory once that is decided. I suspect he will want to keep options very simple in the interests of keeping the price realistic.

One other point. I am not sure the Pendolino is a realistic comparison to go by. It has the advantage that it is currently in service and has proved successful, therefore easier to understand why in the end it proved successful. The APT on the other hand wasn't all that successful, only lasted a few years in revenue earning service of any kind so the attraction will largely be (I think) based on nostalgia and I doubt sales will be boosted by many multiple sales.

I wish the project well, not one for me it has to be said, but personally I doubt the numbers will stack up adequately to make it viable in N, even in a stripped back form.

The last batch of Pendolinos, the City of Birmingham ones, were £470 with sound, and sold in 2 days. The market is not all that price sensitive.

I can’t see Dave going below £600 for a 14-car unit. That would be a 30% reduction on his original listed price.

I agree that £600 for a full train must be the target, with lower priced part sets which are fine for APT-P as it often ran short formed in one or both halves of the train. But each half set has 4 different trailer car bodies, plus interior differences for the TS/TF/TU, and then there is the power(ed) car to add to the mix.

£600 would be £40 over the RRP for two Farish Class 350s in TransPennine livery which would be 2 powered and 6 unpowered vehicles. Add in the DJModels and DToS profit margins, and I suspect that £600 is going to be unattainable. But it is surely worth a look at what can be achieved.

Iconic of what, is the question! By the only objective measurement that matters, sufficient engineering success that it warranted further development, it was a failure. Of course I know there was a political dimension to the APT story, but when all is said and done, it was a dead end, so far as British railway manufacturing went.

The APT wasn't an engineering failure. The plug got pulled just as the bugs were being ironed out. The engineering work that went into the APT-E (Gas-turbine) and APT-P (OHLE) units was world leading.

The work done on the rail-wheel interaction has directly influenced hight speed passenger trains across the world. The work also lead to improved designs for four-wheel wagons (and the Pacers!) allowing them to run at higher speeds.

The design of the power cars with body mounted drive motors leading to low un-sprung weight was previously untried but ultimately sucessful - the design of the class 91 was a direct copy - these have been runnng for 30 years with one of the class holding the current British rail speed record.

The design of the tilting system was ahead of its time. Whilst the Pendo's technology follows on from the work done on the APT it's actually less advanced - relying on trackside transmitters to tell the train when to tilt and by how much. The APT had an active system that worked out what was needed automatically.

On RMWeb Kit Spackman (aka "Mr Tilt" - he who developed the system on the APT) said that the tilting mechanism lives on under every Super Voyager. I assumed they used the same system as the Pendolinos, but perhaps not... An even more literal example of the APT influencing future stock.

The APT wasn't an engineering failure. The plug got pulled just as the bugs were being ironed out. The engineering work that went into the APT-E (Gas-turbine) and APT-P (OHLE) units was world leading.

Agreed, but you will see that I was very careful in what I wrote: engineering success that warranted further development. So far as BR, and the British government of the time, were concerned, the APT failed to justify further investment.

It's very easy to sit back as armchair railway managers and describe the ways BR went wrong. But the real railway is there to do a certain job within certain political and financial constraints. I think we lose sight of that sometimes, and assume unlimited funds can have be poured into the railway system.

Patents if they are not for the original concept have to be for the specific implementing technology. The concept of tilting in vehicles goes back to the 1920's if not before, and trains in 1941, and if it ever was patented these patents would have lapsed. I don't believe that Fiat copied the APT specific technology but was developed separately to achieve the same effect and therefore would not infringe the BR patents.

I'm far from an expert, but my recollection, supported by a lot of content online suggests that Fiat (prior to their acquisition by Alsthom) purchased technology from the APT project, even if they had already developed their own system independently, and this was then used on the Pendolinos (as a family, not just the BR 390s). The concept of tilting in vehicles goes back to the first bicycles or velocipedes or whatever, far earlier than the 1920s.

We really are splitting hairs though, not even sure what the point is.

Dragging us back on topic let's see what Dave comes up with on price for a 'light' version, I personally can't see it being a viable project for a number of reasons:

- price- low demand- Dave himself

I hope I'm wrong, and I'll have a 10-car unit if the price is right, but I'm not going to be an early backer because I still want something more tangible from Dave and personally wish he'd actually delivered some more projects before announcing his most ambitious one yet.

I'm sure you're right Mike, like I say I'm just going off popular wisdom/my recollection. It look like Kit needs to update Wikipedia to stop people getting it wrong

Quote

In 1982, FIAT acquired patents for the tilting bogie used in the ill-fated British project APT. This and other improvements led to the introduction of the more advanced ETR 450, the first Pendolino to enter regular service in the world.

Edit: I really dislike how smug the smiley face is on here, no smugness intended whatsoever!

PLEASE NOTE: Unless where obviously posting on behalf of the NGS, all posts and views are my own and not connected/endorsed by the Society.

“Having anxiety and depression is like being scared and tired at the same time. It's the fear of failure, but no urge to be productive. It's wanting friends, but hate socializing. It's wanting to be alone, but not wanting to be lonely. It's feeling everything at once then feeling paralyzingly numb.”

We're not crazy, or insane, we're just people living with a condition.

PLEASE NOTE: Unless where obviously posting on behalf of the NGS, all posts and views are my own and not connected/endorsed by the Society.

“Having anxiety and depression is like being scared and tired at the same time. It's the fear of failure, but no urge to be productive. It's wanting friends, but hate socializing. It's wanting to be alone, but not wanting to be lonely. It's feeling everything at once then feeling paralyzingly numb.”

We're not crazy, or insane, we're just people living with a condition.